The Magellanic Stream: A Case Study in Interacting Galaxies

Two of the Milky Way’s nearest neighbors, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, have been dancing around each other for billions of years. This dance has led to a huge amount of gas getting thrown from their disks and out into what we know as the Magellanic Stream. In my work, I run high resolution simulations of these interactions to better constrain the history and future of the Magellanic System. Some of our recent results have shown that a warm circumgalactic medium of warm gas around the Magellanic Clouds may play a large role in the formation and current properties of the Stream and that the Stream may be up to five times closer than previously thought. In this talk I will discuss these simulations and their development as well as their predictions and how we may be able to confirm or refute them in future work.

Scott Lucchini is a PhD student working with Elena D’Onghia on hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy interactions. He is specifically studying the history and formation of the Magellanic Stream through tidal interactions between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. In his spare time he enjoys swing dancing, driving and working on his 1995 Mazda Miata, and landscape and architectural photography.

This meeting is planned to be in-person at UW Space Place. We will make arrangements for people who can’t attend to stream the event live.